The photographic arts blog.

Oak Knoll – Study

I posted the original version of this photograph on Flickr my very first day; about a year and a half ago.

Yup. It’s a repost. “But wait!” the spry of memory among your might say, “I remember something quite different.” And you would be quite right. Though born of the same .NEF file(s), they are very different images. But what really changed was me.

Have I mentioned that I’m still learning how to see? Oh yeah, that’s the name of the blog…. That’s the point: what changed most between the two images is me, the photographer.

What sparked this was a consolidation project; I had photo stuff on two servers, four computers, and two or three virtualized backups of old computers. A couple of weeks back I set out on the unenviable task of collecting the stuff all together and imposing some sort of order upon it; like cleaning the digital garage. Somewhere along the way I happened upon the folder containing these negatives, and scanning through it in Adobe Bridge, I first recognized the jpg I’d posted to Flickr, then it dawned on me that I had made a 5-shot bracket…

Back then, I didn’t make 5-shot brackets intending to do HDR; it was just plain old-fashioned “insurance” shooting. Back in the ol’ days I’d learned to bracket whenever possible. That rule was right up there with getting an “insurance” shot – second exposures “just in case”. These rules harken back to the days of sheet film and plate cameras with dark slides and contraptions to move film about. There were plenty of things to go wrong, so “insurance shots” were a very good idea if you could afford the time and film. These days, with digital cameras and massive image storage capacities, the practical barriers to routinely bracketing – when conditions permit - grow smaller all the time.

So, I shot a bracket of this; perhaps just to see which exposure was best. Regardless, I chose the middle exposure, did very minimal processing and posted it to share with my daughter who lives in LA.

In the note accompanying the post I wrote :”This picture and a few others in the series need a bit of work; they don’t ‘read’ right – yet.”

This was pretty much the straight jpg. The subject, framing, positioning, exposure, etc. are all decent. And I’d gotten my digital workflow sorted out sufficiently that what was on the monitor was pretty close to what you see on the print. Fine. But I knew this wasn’t the look I wanted – this isn’t what I wanted to show you…

Now, turn the clock forward a year an a half:

This is much more what I had in mind when I snapped the shutter that day.

That oak – the pater familias I think – thoroughly dominated the scene; I wanted it just a touch surreal – the clouds too loud, the shimmer of movement in the foreground grasses (about knee high), the clouds throwing winter’s last gasp against the spring…

Right now this is my favorite version; others are possible. I wonder what it will look like if I redo it again another year and a half down the road?

Tools are what we humans use to chip away at the limits of imagination.